Wednesday, November 23, 2016

My husband wanted a Strawberry Cheesecake for dessert for Thanksgiving so I just finished baking this recipe I found on allrecipes.com. I sure hope that it's good. I'll have to add a picture of it tomorrow because I'm too tired to pull out the camera right now. Gotta get some sleep after cleaning up the kitchen..

Place strawberries and cornstarch into a blender. Cover and puree until smooth. Pour strawberry sauce into a saucepan.

Bring to a boil over high heat. Boil and stir until sauce is thick and shiny, about 2 minutes. Set aside 1/3 cup strawberry sauce; cool. Cover and refrigerate remaining sauce for serving.

Beat cream cheese in a mixing bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy; gradually beat in condensed milk. Mix in lemon juice and vanilla extract, then beat in eggs on low speed until just combined. Pour half of cream cheese mixture over crust; drop half of reserved strawberry sauce by 1/2 teaspoonfuls on cream cheese layer. Carefully spoon remaining cream cheese mixture over sauce; drop remaining strawberry sauce by 1/2 teaspoonfuls on top. Cut through top layer only with a knife to swirl strawberry sauce.

Bake in preheated oven until center is almost set, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Carefully run a knife around edge of pan to loosen; cool 1 hour longer. Refrigerate overnight. Serve reserved strawberry sauce with cheesecake. If the sauce is too thick, stir in water.

Also on the Thanksgiving Menu:

Turkey (my husband bought one of those greaseless turkey fryers to cook the turkey in)

Sunday, August 21, 2016

For years I've tried to perfect homemade biscuits but was never able to get them to look or taste like the ones my mother made. She has this big bowl that she keeps her self-rising flour in, makes a well in the center and puts a chunk of lard and milk in it to work it into a dough. After her dough comes together, she kneads it a few times, then pinches the dough into little clumps, then rolls each one into balls, flattens them into discs, places them in a greased biscuit pan. After she has placed them all in the pan, she takes her hand and gives them another press down, places them in a 450 degre oven and bakes them. During the last couple of minutes in the oven, she turns the oven to broil to brown them.

I love watching cooking shows on TV and YouTube and ran across a YouTube Video with instructions for making biscuits in a food processor. I followed the instructions and loved the results.

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp Kosher salt

6 tbsp of butter

3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Add dry ingredients to food processor and pulse 4-5 times to combine.

Cut butter into pats and place on top of flour mixture in food processor. Pulse 5-6 times to incorporate. Do not over mix.

Add buttermilk and pulse just until dough forms... About 9-10 pulses... Do not over-mix.

Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Shape into a ball and roll to desired thickness.

I used my cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits then re-worked the remaining dough and made a bread stick.

Place biscuits on a lightly greased pan (I use a parchment paper lined pan instead).

I probably left my biscuits under the broiler a tad too long but I do like my biscuits brown. They were still good and my husband loved them.

Update: The recipe above calls for buttermilk and I don't always have buttermilk in my fridge. I decided to purchase a container of the powdered buttermilk and try it. There is a definite difference in the final outcome. I added 3 tablespoons of the buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients in the food processor and added 3/4 cups of water in step 4. I think I will add a little less water the next time because my dough was a bit too sticky and I had to incorporate more flour than I wanted to. When I finally got the dough to the consistency that I wanted. I squeezed off clumps of dough (just like my mother does), rolled them into balls, patted them into discs and placed on a parchment paper lined cast iron pan.

Again, I left the biscuits under the broiler a tad too long but they, other than that, they were tender, soft and delicious. I don't know whether the powdered buttermilk made the difference or not. I'll have to give each method another try to see but, as I stated earlier, I will use less water when using the powdered buttermilk.

Monday, May 9, 2016

This is way too much food for hubby and me so we will have left-overs for days!!! If our daughter and her family comes by, they are more than welcome to take some home ... Their daughters will probably love it.

I saw this recipe on the Southernplate website and had to give it a try. It was simple, only took a few ingredients, and is very tasty. Quicker than trying to make a pizza because I didn't have to deal with making pizza dough although making Pizza dough in my Zojirushi bread maker will be a project that I plan to tackle later this week. Here's the Recipe:

My husband and I were at the mall with our two little grands (ages 4 years and 1 1/2 years) a couple of weeks ago and we were having a really great time with them. I was in 'MeMaw Heaven', using my iPad Pro to snap pictures of them as they rode the various kiddie rides in the mall. I set my bag down for just an instant to help the 1 1/2 year old get into one of the little cars, went back to my bag to get my iPad Pro to resume filming and taking pictures and, POOF!!! ... just like that, my iPad Pro had been taken from my bag. I was just devastated!!!

I had years of memories stored on that iPad. I started buying them from the very first generation and upgraded each time a new one was introduced. Even though I synch my iPad to my desktop on a regular basis, there are still files that had yet to be synced. I wish I had the pictures I took of my little grands at the mall. I had installed the 'Find my iPad App' on it but it only works if the person who took possession of it goes on-line. I went to iCloud and added a 'lock' code so that it will lock it if anyone is able to access the Internet on it. It was password protected so, hopefully, whoever took it will not be able to gain access to my information.

Friday, February 19, 2016

There was a period in my life when I dreaded cooking... it was such a chore. Now I love to cook ... Perhaps because I am now retired and have time to cook if and when I want to. I invested in a Viking Range in 2001 and loved it but no longer own it. It was a gas range and hubby and I moved into a home equipped with an electric range in 2012. The kitchen is much smaller and the Viking was too large to fit the space... bummer. Nevertheless, I've invested in other cooking gadgets that I love.

One of my favs is a Zojirushi Home Bakery Breadmaker. I've made many loaves of bread in it... for hubby and me, my mother, my sister, my in-laws... whoever... whenever. Today I tried my hand at a recipe I saw on-line... "Half-and-Half Bread - Half Wheat and Half White.

About Me

Hello Crafting World. My husband and I are active members of a Baptist church in our area and we are the proud parents of two daughters, one granddaughter (a second granddaughter on the way), and two grand dogs.
We joined a local senior center in our area in 2005 and I taught a crafting class there for a couple of years. Somewhere along the way I attended a Stampin' Up! Workshop and got hooked on the products and became a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.
We moved into our dream home in 2012... I call it our dream home because it has a basement --- He gets to have his 'Man-Cave' with his Billiards table and I have my very own Craft Room... finally a place for all my crafting stuff that I have accumulated over the years.
God is good.